Ye powers, who under earth your realms extend,
To whom all mortals must one day descend;
If here 'tis granted sacred truth to tell;
I come not, curious, to explore your hell;
Nor come to boast (by vain ambition fir'd)
How Cerberus at my approach retir'd.
My wife alone I seek; for her lov'd sake
These terrors I support, this journey take,
She luckless wandering, or by fate misled,
Chanc'd on a lurking viper's crest to tread;
The vengeful beast inflam'd with fury starts,
And through her heel his deathful venom darts.
Thus was she snatch'd untimely to her tomb;
Her growing years cut short, and springing bloom.
Long I my loss endeavour'd to sustain,
And strongly strove, but strove, alas! in vain:
At length I yielded, won by mighty love:
Well known is that omnipotence above!
But here, I doubt, his unfelt influence fails;
And yet a hope within my heart prevails,
That here, e'en here, he has been known of old;
At least if truth be by tradition told;
If fame of former rapes belief may find,
You both by love, and love alone, were join'd.
Now by the horrors which these realms surround;
By the vast chaos of these depths profound;
By the sad silence which eternal reigns
O'er all the waste of these wide-stretching plains;
Let me again Eurydice receive,
Let fate her quickspun thread of life re-weave.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille CorotOrpheus leading Eurydice from the Underworld1861
oil on canvasMuseum of Fine Arts, Houston

MarcantonioOrpheus and Eurydice
ca. 1510-27
engravingBritish Museum

They called forth Eurydice who was as yit among
The newcome Ghosts, and limped of her wound. Her husband tooke
Her with condicion that he should not backe uppon her looke,
Untill the tyme that hee were past the bounds of Limbo quyght:
Or else to lose his gyft. They tooke a path that steepe upryght
Rose darke and full of foggye mist. And now they were within
A kenning of the upper earth, when Orphye did begin
To dowt him lest shee followed not, and through an eager love
Desyrous for to see her, he his eyes did backward move.
Immediately shee slipped backe. He retching out his hands,
Desyrous to bee caught and for to ketch her grasping stands.
But nothing save the slippry aire (unhappy man) he caught.
Shee dying now the second tyme complaynd of Orphye naught.
For why what had shee to complayne, onlesse it were of love?
Which made her husband backe agen his eyes uppon her move?
Her last farewell shee spake so soft, that scarce he heard the sound,
And then revolted to the place in which he had her found . . .

– from Ovid's Metamorphoses, translated by Arthur Golding (1567)

Ubaldo GandolfiOrpheus looking back at Eurydice
before 1781
drawingMorgan Library, New York

"If the Romans (someone will say) did not devote themselves to this labor of translation, then by what means were they able so to enrich their language, indeed to make it almost the equal of Greek? By imitating the best Greek authors, transforming themselves into them, devouring them, and, after having thoroughly digested them, converting them into blood, and nourishment, selecting, each according to his own nature and the topic he wished to choose, the best author, all of whose rarest and most exquisite strengths they diligently observed and, like shoots, grafted them, as I said earlier, and adapted them to their own language. In doing this (I say) the Romans constructed all those fine writings we so ardently praise and admire, judging some to be the equal of the Greeks, preferring some as superior to them."

. . .

"Thus let him who would enrich his language devote himself to the imitation of the best Greek and Latin authors and aim, as at a sure target, the point of his stylus at all their greatest strengths. For there is no doubt that the largest part of artfulness is encompassed in imitation, and just as it was most praiseworthy in the ancients to invent well, so is it most useful to imitate well, especially for those whose language is not yet very copious and rich. But let him who would imitate understand that it is not an easy thing faithfully to follow the strengths of a good author and, as it were, transform oneself into him, seeing that Nature herself, even with things that appear most similar, has not managed to prevent their being distinguished by some mark and difference. I say this because there are many in all languages who, without delving into the most hidden and inward parts of the author they have chose, adapt themselves only to what they see at first and, diverting themselves with the beauty of words, miss the force of things."

"And certainly, since it is no vice, but greatly praiseworthy, to borrow from a foreign language ideas and words and to claim them as one's own, so is it greatly to be blamed and is indeed odious to any reader of liberal character to see such imitation within the same language, like that of even some learned men who judge themselves to be among the best when they most resemble a Héroët or a Marot. I thus admonish you (O you who desire the growth of your language and wish to excel in it) not to imitate lightly, as someone recently said, its most famous authors, as the greater number of our French poets commonly do, a thing surely as reprehensible as it is worthless to our vulgar tongue, since it amounts to no more (O great generosity!) than to give it what it already has. I wish our language were so rich in homegrown models that we had no need to have recourse to foreign ones. But if Virgil and Cicero had been content to imitate those of their own language, what would the Latins have beyond Ennius or Lucretius, beyond Crassus or Anthony?"

– Joachim du Bellay (1522-1560), from The Defense and Enrichment of the French Language (1549), translated by Richard Helgerson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006)

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Johannes van WijckerslootAllegory on the French Invasion of 1672
1672
oil on canvasRijksmuseum, Amsterdam

"In 1672 the Netherlands was invaded by the French. That disaster is allegorically rendered in the drawing at which the seated man looks; the Dutch lion is defeated, its weapons in pieces, the gate to its enclosure broken; above the French rooster crows triumphantly. Symbolizing the other side is the standing man with an orange feather in his cap; he is a supporter of William III or Orange, who would avert the French threat." Provenance: The painting was in held in a private French collection until 1985, then passed through the hands of several European dealers and auction houses until purchased by the museum in 1995. Considering its apparent quality and significance, and compared to other art sales, the price of roughly $150,000 seems surprisingly low.

"At the left are the Protestant north Netherlanders, and at the right the Catholic southerners. Both parties fish for souls in the wide river dividing them. The Protestants' catch is greater than that of the Catholics. Moreover, at the left the sun is shining and the trees are in leaf. This is a reference to the Psalm: 'the righteous will flourish like a tree bearing fruit, whose leaves never wither'."

Govert FlinckPortrait of Officers and Civic Guardsmen of the XVIIIth district of Amsterdamserving under Captain Albert Bas and Lieutenant Lucas Conijn
1645
oil on canvasRijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Jan TengnagelPortrait of Officers and Civic Guardsmen of the XIth district of Amsterdam
1613
oil on canvasRijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Adam PijnackerBoatmen moored on the shore of an Italian Lakeperhaps intended to represent The Flight into Egypt
ca. 1650-70
oil on canvasRijksmuseum, Amsterdam

"Pijnacker assembled an ingenious composition. Dark tree trunks in the foreground frame the vignette of the boats. Everything is bathed in the gold glow of the warm Italian light. Sunlight falls on the white birch bark and mossy tree trunks, creating sharp accents."

Adriaen van de VeldeThe Hut
1671
oil on canvasRijksmuseum, Amsterdam

"The Rijksmuseum bought Adriaen van de Velde's painting in 1822 for the – at the time – staggering amount of 8290 guilders. Its small format notwithstanding, throughout the 19th century the painting was considered an absolute masterpiece of Dutch Golden Age art. This celebrity status faded in the 20th century. Even so, it remains one of the most beautiful pictures from the last year of the artist's life."

"Charles V is enthroned at centre. Battle weary and wracked by illness, in 1555 he divided up his empire. He gave his brother Ferdinand (left of the the throne) the Holy Roman Empire, while his son Philip (at the right) became King of Spain and Lord of the Netherlands. The four figures in the right foreground personify the continents over which Charles's vast empire stretched. Neptune (left) symbolizes his power at sea."

Caspar NetscherPortrait of William III Prince of Orange and Stadholder ca. 1680-84
oil on canvasRijksmuseum, Amsterdam

"At the time this portrait was made, William III was stadholder of the Dutch Republic and commander of the army. This is how a ruler had himself immortalized, namely holding a commander's staff to underscore his actual might. The plumed helmet and orange sash also signify his status. Still, the prince had not yet reached the height of his power: in 1689 he would also become the king of England."

"Lingelbach made sketches from life in Rome, from which he composed this imaginary marketplace after he returned to Amsterdam. The figures take no interest in the antique ruins; their attention is absorbed by the tooth-puller to the left, who treats his victim while on horseback. In the centre, two men play morra (which involves how many fingers the opponent will hold up). At right is a clambellaro selling pretzels and other refreshments."

"The two gnarled oak trees, brightly illuminated by a few rays of sunlight, stand out sharply against the threatening sky. Van Goyen drew the trees with his brush. He used thin, almost transparent paint for the foliage, and thick grainy paint for the furrowed trunks. The landscape's near monochrome palette is enlivened by the blue and red doublets of the two figures resting."

Adriaen CoorteStill Life with Asparagus
1697
oil on paper, mounted on panelRijksmuseum, Amsterdam

"Coorte produced mostly small, intimate still lifes. Through their simple subjects – asparagus or berries – these modest paintings stand out in stark contrast to the sumptuous still lifes that were in fashion at the time. While the aim of those works was to present a superabundance of costly objects and foodstuffs, here attention is focused on the refined rendering of a single vegetable."

Charlotte went walking in the park at evening
While the dusk hung there, windowed west with sun
And east with moon that overlooked the wall.

Said she:
What if the moon be ashes?
They say the moon is arid
Cinders of dead volcanoes.
What if her light be feigning
And gloze this brick I am treading
With rosy-silver mocking?
What if the dead be dead
And vanished altogether
And loveliness be but ashes?

Slowly Charlotte travelled the brick walk,
Cutting a rose-pale circle in the grass
That breathed upon her with a warm night-smell –
The multitudinous, the living grass.

Soon he will come to meet me –
(Quick blood halts and listens!)
Come like a big dark bird
Flown in from a bare bright world.
He will feather me soft with silence,
Nest me in with possession,
Scatter the ashen moonshine . . .
Blood still pounds in its tunnels,
Courses in hidden splendor
Like running flame in the pulses –

Gerrit van HonthorstShepherd playing the Flute to Four Shepherdesses
1632
oil on canvasRijksmuseum, Amsterdam

fromPastoral Dialogue

Remember when you love, from that same hour
Your peace you put into your lover's power;
From that same hour from him you laws receive,
And as he shall ordain, you joy, or grieve,
Hope, fear, laugh, weep; Reason aloof does stand,
Disabled both to act, and to command.
Oh cruel fetters! rather wish to feel
On your soft limbs, the galling weight of steel;
Rather to bloody wounds oppose your breast.
No ill, by which the body can be pressed
You will so sensible a torment find
As shackles on your captived mind.

COMRADES OF TIME

"Hesitation with regard to the modern projects mainly has to do with a growing disbelief in their promises. Classical modernity believed in the ability of the future to realize the promises of past and present – even after the death of God, even after the loss of faith in the immortality of the soul. The notion of a permanent art collection says it all: archive, library and museum promised secular permanency, a material infinitude that substituted for the religious promise of resurrection and eternal life. During the period of modernity, the 'body of work' replaced the soul as the potentially immortal part of the Self. . . . But today, this promise of an infinite future holding the results of our work has lost its plausibility. Museums have become the sites of temporary exhibitions rather than spaces for permanent collections. The future is ever newly planned – the permanent change of cultural trends and fashions makes any promise of a stable future for an artwork or a political project improbable."